Brief

Project InTouch was a 10-week project where we examined whether the inherent solidarity of VR can be breached by high levels of socialization and interaction of traditional tabletop games. Through this project, we experimented different ways to use the immersive factor of the device in our favor while enhancing the feeling of socialization of traditional board games.

What is InTouch?

InTouch is a project in which we developed a 5 to 7 minutes multiplayer tabletop game that brings social interactivity to the VR realm.

The main story of the game is that players are the sorcerers seeking magical power and they must collect runes and escape before being trapped forever in the magical realm.

Group Work

Duration

Description

Research and Game Development

Since our goal was to develop a product which shows how tabletop game elements can be adapted effectively into VR, not to create an original game, we decided to take certain mechanism from existing games and use it to create our own.

Our team played many different, digital and traditional board games in the market and deconstructed and analyzed based on their features.

After research, we decided to use the basic structure of an existing board game called ‘Zombie in My Pocket’. This game allowed the two players to explore the maps, find some objects, and finally escape from the map. During the exploration, the player may meet some difficulties or gain some helpful items. There is a time limitation for this game, which requires that two players escape as fast as they can.

We found that this game is a very good model while the mechanics of the game need to be further developed to allow more interaction between two players.

Paper Prototype

Upon this basic mechanism, we did a quick iteration and developed a simplified paper prototype. Our paper prototype had five basic rules.

1) Two players have to collaborate to find three gems hidden on the board and escape.2) Tiles are generated as players move to a place on the board where it wasn’t explored before.3) When they step on an existing tile, the tile loses health.4) Players take three turns each and they can either move, send an item or use an item.5) Players can find items while exploring the map.

Playtesting

With this paper prototype, we performed multiple playtests to find out what we need to change further in order to make the game interesting.

Through the playtests, we were able to find out that

1) Players considered the movement on the board and exchanging items between each other as most intuitive, engaging game mechanics.2) Players needed more explanation on the purpose of getting the gems.3) Player did feel it’s a collaborative game through strategizing with the other player.

Concept

To match our game mechanism we chose the story of two sorcerors seeking magical power in the magical realm and they must collect runes and escape before being trapped forever.

Since the game board was made of tiles, we decided to represent these as islands and created various concept art for the map.

Interaction map

Before designing the overall experience and interaction in the game, I developed a map which has all the actions that would happen inside the VR experience.

Interface

Based on this map, we started to discuss and test how each interaction should be designed. We sketched different ways to represent the information that has to be delivered to the players within the VR space.

If it’s your everyday digital game, putting the UI somewhere over the screen is easier than developing the UI in the VR space because, in VR, users have the freedom to look anywhere in the 360 space.

Where in space do we put them?

The information that needs to be displayed to the players is the following:

So we sketched different ideas for the UI and put together an initial layout.

Interaction

Since Oculus Touch was a fairly new device, we experimented different interactions using the buttons and joysticks. We had to find out what felt most natural to users so we tested mapping features on different buttons to observe how quickly the players learned to use them.

These were some of the initial interactions we designed into our prototype.

Initial Prototype

In order to test and quickly iterate, we created an initial prototype and performed multiple playtests.

Based on the playtests, we were able to discover many valuable findings. The main findings were:

1) Since the device is not familiar to users, the learning curve was higher than we thought.2) Movements of certain objects were not clear to the users due to the limitation of their views.3)The candles on the tiles which indicates the health of the tiles were not clear.

We performed multiple iterations of the art, interaction and the position of the objects and we also added a tutorial to help the users learn about the game in a short amount of time.

Final Prototype

Challenges and Learnings

The largest challenge that I faced throughout the project as a UX/UI designer was the thinking about how to make good use of the VR space. The beauty of VR is that it gives the users a freedom to look at whatever they want. However, as a designer, this means I need to find out different ways to guide the users to gaze where I want them to look at.

Also, because this was a two player game, I had to experiment with the spacing between the objects, space between the users and the size and position of different objects.

Testing was also difficult because it is hard to do paper prototyping effectively compared to 2D screens.

By going through a full 10 weeks of ideation, iteration, and testing, I’ve gained much deeper understanding of how UX and UI have to be designed differently compared to designing for 2D screens.